Joel on Software
Strategy Letter III: Let Me Go Back!
by Joel Spolsky Saturday, June 03, 2000
When you're trying to get people to switch from a competitor to your product, you need to understand barriers to entry, and you need to understand them a lot better than you think, or people won't switch and you'll be waiting tables.
当你尝试让人们从你的竞争对手产品转换到你的产品的时候，你必须要明白进入门槛，而且最好认真把这个东西搞搞清楚。要不然人们就不会使用你的产品，而你就只好一直等待着。
In an earlier letter, I wrote about the difference between two kinds of companies: the Ben and Jerry's kind of company which is trying to take over from established competition, versus the Amazon.com kind of company which is trying a "land grab" in a new field where there is no established competition. When I worked on Microsoft Excel in the early 90's, it was a card-carrying member of the Ben and Jerry's camp. Lotus 123, the established competitor, had an almost complete monopoly in the market for spreadsheets. Sure, there were new users buying computers who started out with Excel, but for the most part, if Microsoft wanted to sell spreadsheets, they were going to have to get people to switch.
在前一封书信里，我谈到了两种不同模式公司的差别：本杰瑞公司通常是要从现有的竞争中慢慢胜出，而亚马逊公司则是那种尝试在一个没有任何竞争的新领域快速圈地的公司。九十年代早期我在微软Excel工作的时候，这个团队只是一个正牌的本杰瑞公司阵营成员。Lotus123是当时公认的竞争者，在电子表单市场几乎占据着完全垄断的地位。确实会有一些新的用户买电脑的时候会开始使用Excel，但是对于大部分人来讲，如果微软想要卖出他们的电子表单，他们就必须让客户改变他们的选择。
The most important thing to do when you're in this position is to admit it. Some companies can't even do this. The management at my last employer, Juno, was unwilling to admit that AOL had already achieved a dominant position. They spoke of the "millions of people not yet online." They said that "in every market, there is room for two players: Time and Newsweek, Coke and Pepsi, etc." The only thing they wouldn't say is "we have to get people to switch away from AOL." I'm not sure what they were afraid of. Perhaps they thought they were afraid to "wake up the sleeping bear". When one of Juno's star programmers (no, not me) had the chutzpah, the unmitigated gall to ask a simple question at a company meeting: "Why aren't we doing more to get AOL users to switch?" they hauled him off, screamed at him for an hour, and denied him a promotion he had been promised. (Guess who took his talent elsewhere?)
当你在这种处境下，首先最重要的事情就是要承认这种处境。有些公司甚至连这一点都做不到。我上一个雇主Juno的管理层，就不愿意承认AOL事实上已经取得了统治地位。他们只会说上百万的人还没有上网；只会说在每一个市场，都有足够的空间容纳两个竞争者，比如时代杂志和每周新闻，可口可乐和百事可乐等等。他们唯一不会说的事情就是：我们得让人们换到我们的产品来。我不知道他们害怕的是什么，可能只是害怕会唤醒那只沉睡的熊吧。公司刚出道的明星程序员之一（不是我）鼓足勇气，在一次公司会议上放肆地问道：为什么我们不多做一点功能以便让AOL用户转换到我们的产品来呢？他们马上打断他，吵吵嚷嚷了有一个小时，并且拒绝给他曾经承诺过的职位晋升（你猜猜那个公司最后获得了这个天才？）。
There's nothing wrong with being in a market that has established competition. In fact, even if your product is radically new, like eBay, you probably have competition: garage sales! Don't stress too much. If your product is better in some way, you actually have a pretty good chance of getting people to switch. But you have to think strategically about it, and thinking strategically means thinking one step beyond the obvious.
活在一个有竞争的市场上不是什么问题。哪怕你的产品再新，就像ebay，你可能还是会有竞争，例如车库销售。不要太紧张了。如果你的产品在某些地方确实好的话，实际上还是能说服用户转换到你的产品来的，但是你得从策略层面来思考这件事情，策略层面思考意味着需要比那种直接的思考方往前多走一步。
The only strategy in getting people to switch to your product is toeliminate barriers. Imagine that it's 1991. The dominant spreadsheet, with 100% market share, is Lotus 123. You're the product manager for Microsoft Excel. Ask yourself: what are the barriers to switching? What keeps users from becoming Excel customers tomorrow?
Barrier
1 . They have to know about Excel and know that it's better
2 . They have to buy Excel
3 . They have to buy Windows to run Excel
4 . They have to convert their existing spreadsheets from 123 to Excel
5 . They have to rewrite their keyboard macros which won't run in Excel
6 . They have to learn a new user interface
7 . They need a faster computer with more memory
门槛
1 . 他们得知道Excel更好用。
2 . 他们得购买Excel。
3 . 他们北购买windows来运行Excel。
4 . 他们得把现有的电子表单从123转成Excel。
5 .他们得重写那些在Excel上不能运行的键盘宏。
6 . 他们得学习新的用户界面。
7 . 他们得花更多钱买一个内存更大的电脑。
And so on, and so on. Think of these barriers as an obstacle course that people have to run before you can count them as your customers. If you start out with a field of 1000 runners, about half of them will trip on the tires; half of the survivors won't be strong enough to jump the wall; half of those survivors will fall off the rope ladder into the mud, and so on, until only 1 or 2 people actually overcome all the hurdles. With 8 or 9 barriers, everybody will have one non-negotiable deal killer.
诸如此类，在获得这些用户之前，你要把这些门槛看成是阻止用户使用你们产品的最大障碍。如果这个行业有一千个竞争，他们中的一半可能因为轮胎在半路上停下了；剩下一半幸存者没有办法越过那道墙；剩下的一半竞争者可能没有办法越过绳梯进入泥潭，等等。直到只有大概一到两个人实际上克服了所有的这些障碍。如果说有八到九个门槛的话，每个潜在客户都会有大概一个“免谈“类型的进入门槛。
This calculus means that eliminating barriers to switching is the most important thing you have to do if you want to take over an existing market, because eliminating just one barrier will likely doubleyour sales. Eliminate two barriers, and you'll double your sales again. Microsoft looked at the list of barriers and worked on all of them:
Barrier Solution
1 . They have to know about Excel and know that it's better Advertise Excel, send out demo disks, and tour the country showing it off
2 . They have to buy Excel Offer a special discount for former 123 users to switch to Excel
3 . They have to buy Windows to run Excel Make a runtime version of Windows which ships free with Excel
4 . They have to convert their existing spreadsheets from 123 to Excel Give Excel the capability to read 123 spreadsheets
5 . They have to rewrite their keyboard macros which won't run in Excel Give Excel the capability to run 123 macros
6 . They have to learn a new user interface Give Excel the ability to understand Lotus keystrokes, in case you were used to the old way of doing things
7 . They need a faster computer with more memory Wait for Moore's law to solve the problem of computer power
门槛
1 . 他们得知道Excel更好用。 做广告，分发试用盘，并且全国巡回路演。
2 . 他们得购买Excel。 对从Lotus123转换过来的客户提供特别优惠的折扣。
3 . 他们北购买windows来运行Excel。 Windows版本捆绑免费Excel。
4 . 他们得把现有的电子表单从123转成Excel。 让Excel能够处理Lotus电子表单。
5 .他们得重写那些在Excel上不能运行的键盘宏。 让Excel能够运行Lotus的宏。
6 . 他们得学习新的用户界面。 让Excel能够理解Lotus的敲键方式，如果用户已经适应了那种老式的做事方式的话。
7 . 他们得花更多钱买一个内存更大的电脑。 等待摩尔定律来消除这个问题。
And it worked pretty well. By incessant pounding on eliminating barriers, they slowly pried some market share away from Lotus.
这些计算都是想说明一个问题：如果你想要在一个已经建立竞争的市场上胜出的话，消除切换时产品的进入门槛是必须得做的最重要的一件事情。因为消除一个进入门槛可能就会让你的销售翻番，消除了两个门槛可能会让你的销售再翻一番。微软就仔细的审查了这个进入门槛列表，并且处理了其中的每一项门槛。
One thing you see a lot when there is a transition from an old monopoly to a new monopoly is that there is a magic "tipping point": one morning, you wake up and your product has 80% market share instead of 20% market share. This flip tends to happen very quickly (VisiCalc to 123 to Excel, WordStar to WordPerfect to Word, Mosaic to Netscape to Internet Explorer, dBase to Access, and so on). It usually happens because the very last barrier to entry has fallen and suddenly it's logical for everyone to switch.
通过持续不断的消除这些准入门槛，效果非常好。他们开始从Lotus123那边慢慢地抢占一些市场份额。
当市场从一个旧的垄断转向一个新的垄断的时候，你经常会看见的一个现象就是会出现一个神奇的转折点。某天早上当你醒来的时候你会发现你的产品已经占据了80%的市场份额而不是原来的20%的市场份额。这种转变会发生得非常快（VisiCalc到123到Excel，WordStar到 WordPerfect到Word， Mosaic 到 Netscape到Internet Explorer，dBase到 Access,等等）。这种转变通常发生在最后一个进入门槛都被消除的时候。到这个时候每个人都转换过来试用新产品也已经成为一种合理的决定。
Obviously, it's important to work on fixing the obvious barriers to entry, but once you think you've addressed those, you need to figure out what the non-so-obvious ones are. And this is where strategy becomes tricky, because there are some non-obvious things that keep people from switching.
很明显，处理那些最明显的进入门槛是非常重要的事情。但是一旦你觉得你已经处理了那些门槛，你就得弄清楚那些看起来不是那么明显的门槛是什么？这就是策略变得有一点麻烦的地方。因为总是有一些不太明显的事情让人们不愿意转换过来。
Here's an example. This summer I'm spending most of my time in a house near the beach, but my bills still go to the apartment in New York City. And I travel a lot. There's a nice web service, PayMyBills.com, which is supposed to simplify your life: you have allyour bills sent to them, and they scan them and put them on the web for you to see wherever you may be.
有一个例子：这个夏天我在沙滩旁边的房子里面度过了大部分时间，但是我的账单还是会被寄到纽约的公寓。因为我经常旅行，于是有一个很棒的网络服务paymybills.com。这个网站当然应该是要简化你的生活的。你的所有账单都会被寄送给他们，然后他们把这些账单扫描后上传到网站，这样不管你在哪里都能看到这些账单。
Now, PayMyBills costs about $9 a month, which sounds reasonable, and I would consider using it, but in the past, I've had pretty bad luck with financial services on the Internet, like Datek, which made so manyarithmetic mistakes in my statements I couldn't believe they were licensed. So I'm willing to try PayMyBills, but if I don't like it, I want to be able to go back to the old way.
paymybills.com每个月大概花费要收9美元，听起来还蛮合理，我会考虑使用这项服务。但是在过去，我在因特网上使用金融服务的时候总是不大走运。就像的Datek，他们在我的个人纳税申报表里都犯了如此之多的计算错误，我甚至都不敢相信他们是被授权过的。所以我愿意尝试一下paymybills.com，但是如果不喜欢他的话，我希望能够回到以前的那种方式。
The trouble is, after I use PayMyBills, if I don't like it, I need to call every damn credit card company and change my address again. That's a lot of work. And so the fear of how hard it will be to switch back is keeping me from using their service. Earlier I called this "stealth lock-in," and sort of praised it, but if potential customers figure it out, oh boy are you in trouble.
但是问题是：在我使用的paymybills.com之后，如果不喜欢，那我得挨个给那些该死的信用卡公司打电话，再次换回原来的地址，那太麻烦了。所以对于如何切换回来的这种恐惧，一直让我不敢尝试他们的服务。早些时候我把这种叫做隐身锁定效应，甚至持赞扬态度。但是如果潜在的客户搞清楚这件事情的话，呵呵，你就麻烦了。
That's the barrier to entry. Not how hard it is to switch in: it's how hard it might be to switch out.
这就是一种准入门槛，如果换进来有多难的话。那换出去就会有多难。
And this reminded me of Excel's tipping point, which happened around the time of Excel 4.0. And the biggest reason was that Excel 4.0 was the first version of Excel that could write Lotus spreadsheets transparently.
这让我想起了一个Excel的转折点，这个转折点发生在一个Excel4.0左右的时候。最大的原因就是：Excel4.0是第一个能够直接支持透明地将电子表单保存成lotus表单格式的第一个版本。
Yep, you heard me. Write. Not read. It turns out that what was stopping people from switching to Excel was that everybody else they worked with was still using Lotus 123. They didn't want a product that would create spreadsheets that nobody else could read: a classicChicken and Egg problem. When you're the lone Excel fan in a company where everyone else is using 123, even if you love Excel, you can't switch until you can participate in the 123 ecology.
是的，你没听错，是保存不是读取。结果发现，阻碍人们转换到使用Excel的原因就是还是有其他人在使用Lotus123，他们可不想转换到一种这样的产品，这个产品产生出来的表单其他人都没有办法使用。这又是一个经典的鸡和蛋问题，当你是公司里面唯一的Excel粉丝的时候，公司其他人都在使用Lotus123。哪怕你很喜欢Excel，在你加入到这个Lotus123生态环境里之前，你都没有办法转换到这个新产品。
To take over a market, you have to address every barrier to entry. If you forget just one barrier which trips up 50% of your potential customers, then by definition, you can't have more than 50% market share, and you will never displace the dominant player, and you'll be stuck on the sad (omelet) side of chicken and egg problems.
要慢慢地在竞争市场中胜出就要挨个处理所有准入门槛，如果你忘记了要处理一个准入门槛。这个门槛大概阻止了50%你的潜在客户使用新产品，那么从定义上来讲你就没有办法占有50%的市场份额。你就永远没有办法取代市场主导者的地位。你就会卡在那个鸡和蛋问题最消极的那一面（煎蛋面）。
The trouble is that most managers only think about strategy one step at a time, like chess players who refuse to think one move ahead. Most of them will say, "it's important to let people convert into your product, but why should I waste my limited engineering budget letting people convert out?"
麻烦在于大多数是经理都只能一次考虑一步战略。就像棋手不愿意再多考虑一步一样，他们中的大部分人还是会说：我知道让人们转换到我们的产品来说很重要，但是我为什么要把我有限的经费浪费在给人们转换出去提供方便呢？
That's a childish approach to strategy. It reminds me of independent booksellers, who said "why should I make it comfortable for people to read books in my store? I want them to buy the books!" And then one day Barnes and Nobles puts couches and cafes in the stores and practically begged people to read books in their store without buying them. Now you've got all these customers sitting in their stores forhours at a time, mittengrabben all the books with their filthy hands, and the probability that they find something they want to buy is linearly proportional to the amount of time they spend in the store, and even the dinkiest Barnes and Nobles superstore in Iowa City rakes in hundreds of dollars a minute while the independent booksellers are going out of business. Honey, Shakespeare and Company on Manhattan's Upper West Side did not close because Barnes and Nobles had cheaper prices, it closed because Barnes and Nobles had more human beings in the building.
这种说法对于战略层面的思考来说很幼稚。让我想起了独立书商，他们宣称：什么要让客户觉得在我的书店里面读书很舒服呢？我只是想要他们买我的书而已。然后突然有一天Barnes and Nobles在他们的书店里面放进了沙发，咖啡，基本上求着人们进他们的店里读书，但是不要求他们买。这个时候，所有的客户都会成天的泡在他们的店里，用不那么干净的手去翻阅所有的书籍。假设他们找到一些愿意买的书籍的概率正比于他们在店里呆的时间的话，那么哪怕是爱荷华市的最差的Barnes and Nobles旗舰店分分钟都能够赚几百美元，而那些独立书商却纷纷面临着倒闭的局面。亲爱的，曼哈顿西部上层的莎士比亚书店之所以倒闭并不是因为Barnes and Nobles卖的书比他们便宜，他之所以倒闭是因为Barnes and Nobles在他们的书店里面有更多的人。
The mature approach to strategy is not to try to force things on potential customers. If somebody isn't even your customer yet, trying to lock them in just isn't a good idea. When you have 100% market share, come talk to me about lock-in. Until then, if you try to lock them in now, it's too early, and if any customer catches you in the act, you'll just wind up locking them out. Nobody wants to switch to a product that is going to eliminate their freedom in the future.
策略层面思考更成熟的方式就是，不要在潜在的客户身上强制施加任何东西。如果这些人甚至都还没有成为你的客户，你就尝试着想要锁定他们，着绝对不是什么好主意。当你有100%的市场份额的时候，再来跟我谈锁定吧！如果你在这个时候就想要锁定他们，太早了。并且如果任何顾客发现你的这种行为的话，你只不过是牢牢地将他们锁定出去罢了，没有人会愿意牺牲自由来转换到另一个产品。
Let's take a more current example: ISPs, a highly competitive market. Something that virtually no ISP offers is the ability to get your email forwarded to another email address after you quit their service. This is small-minded thinking of the worst sort, and I'm pretty surprised nobody has figured it out. If you're a small ISP trying to get people to switch, they are going to be worrying about the biggest barrier: telling all their friends their new email address. So they won't even want to try your service. If they do try it, they won't tell their friends the new address for a while, just in case it doesn't work out. Which means they won't be getting much email at the new address, which means they won't really be trying out the service and seeing how much better they like it. Lose-lose.
让我们举一个更加现代的例子吧。因特网接入服务提供商行业是一个高度竞争的市场。但是有一样几乎没有任何提供商愿意提供的功能就是：在你退出他们的服务之后,把你的电子邮件转发到你在其他服务商的电子邮件。这是那种最差劲的心胸狭隘思考方式，没有人发现这种情况其实我也蛮惊讶的。你是一家很小的提供商，想尝试让人们换成用你的产品面临的最大问题可能就是他的新邮件地址，所以他们可能都不愿意尝试你的服务。但是如果他们确实尝试的话，因为害怕这家服务提供商也不靠谱,他们可能有一段时间都没有办法告诉朋友们他的最新邮件地址。这就意味着他们用这个新的邮件地址也收不了多少邮件，进一步意味着他们没有真的想尝试试试看这家服务到底有多好。这是种双输的局面。
Now suppose one brave ISP would make the following promise: "Try us. If you don't like us, we'll keep your email address functioning, and we'll forward your email for free to any other ISP. For life. Hop around from ISP to ISP as many times as you want, just let us know, and we'll be your permanent forwarding service."
然后假设有一家勇敢的因特网接入服务提供商做出了以下的承诺：试试看，如果你不喜欢我们，我会让你的email地址继续保持可用，并且我们会免费的把你的电子邮件转发到其他服务提供商。例如，从一家服务商转发到另外一家服务商，随便多少次都可以，只要你愿意，你只要告诉我们，我们很乐意成为你永远的邮件转发服务提供商。
Of course, the business managers would have fits. Why should we make it easy for customers to leave the service? That's because they are short sighted. These are not your customers now. Try to lock them in before they become your customers, and you'll just lock themout. But if you make an honest promise that it will be easy to back out of the service if they're not happy, and suddenly you eliminate one more barrier to entry. And, as we learned, eliminating even a single barrier to entry can have a dramatic effect on conversions, and over time, when you knock down that last barrier to entry, people will start flooding in, and life will be good for a while. Until somebody does the same thing to you.
当然，商务经理会对此很困惑，我们为什么要让客户更方便的离开我们的服务呢？这是因为他们很短视，这些现在已经不是你的客户了，你只是在尝试在这些客户变成你的真正客户之前就锁定他们，而这种做法只会把它们牢牢的锁定在你的产品之外。但是如果你做出一个诚实的承诺：即，如果他们不高兴的话，想要退出这个服务也很容易。这样，你就又消除了一个很大的进入门槛，就像我们所学到的那样。消除最简单的门槛都能够对产品的转化率带来戏剧性的影响。随着时间的推进，你消除了最后的准入门槛，这时客户就像洪水般的涌入你的服务。在其他人做出跟你一样的服务之前，事情就会简单一阵子了。